Page 7 - Healthbeat December 2016

“[MY BLINDNESS] PROBABLY HAS MADE ME MORE APPRECIATIVE OF SOUND AND THE DIFFERENT THINGS THAT SOUND CAN DO. I’VE THOUGHT ABOUT THAT SOMETIMES — HOW, IN A WAY, FOR ME, WHEN I LISTEN TO MUSIC, IT’S MY ENTIRE WORLD.”
ZORA MCBRIDE
ARKANSAS SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND AND VISUALLY IMPAIRED GRADUATE
MATT JOHNSON/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
SUBMITTED PHOTO
Above left: Zora McBride received his first piano lessons when he was 5, and he learned to improvise on piano when he was about 10. Above right: In college, McBride collaborated with his close friends on their improvisational electronic music projects. Most recently, he became a member of a band called The Talking Liberties. From left, keyboardist Zora McBride, frontman Wesley Acklin, drummer Rick Goodman and former bassist Parker Rognrud perform as The Talking Liberties at an October show in Russellville.
McBride is completely blind, and although he cannot see the keys beneath his fingers, he learned to navigate the instrument and the world in other ways — especially through sound.
“Blindness is just a different means of perception,” he said. “It really is just a different way of perceiving the world, and that’s all it is, in a way. It can give you a different perspective and a new perspective, but it doesn’t make you radically different.”
McBride is completely blind due to a disorder called retinopathy of prematurity, which affects the retina, a light-sensitive tissue that lines the back of the eye and sends visual information to the brain through the optic nerve. According to the National Eye Institute, retinal blood vessels begin forming at the optic nerve about 16 weeks into gestation and gradually spread to the edges of the retina. If a child is born before the blood vessels reach the edge of the retina, the vessels may stop growing, which starves the retinal periphery of oxygen and nutrients.
The edge area may then demand nourishment from the rest of the retina, which causes abnormal blood vessels to grow throughout the retina. These weak vessels may bleed and scar, and when those scars shrink, they pull on the retina, which can cause the retina to detach.
In most cases, the disorder is mild and corrects itself without treatment, the institute states, but in
McBride’s case, he has always been blind in one eye. With the other, he could perceive light and darkness until he was 11, when the pressure on that retina became so severe that it had to be detached surgically.
Although McBride is the only member of his family who is blind, he said his parents and six siblings do not treat him differently because of his disability.
“I had a really good family growing up,” he said. “They don’t really make it a thing. They treat me like you would anybody else.”
From an early age, McBride could tell his parents what notes the birds were singing, he added, and it was later discovered that he has perfect pitch. Recognizing his love of music, his parents enrolled him in a year of piano lessons when he was 5. Around that time, the family moved to Little Rock so he could attend the Arkansas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired.
SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK
According to its website, the school was established in 1859 by a Baptist minister in Arkadelphia and relocated to Little Rock in 1868. The school moved to its current site in 1939, at which time it was dedicated by author and activist Helen Keller.“A lot of things have changed since the late 1800s, of course,” Superintendent James Caton said. “I think what a lot of people don’t know about us is that we’re a full K-12 academic school. We
meet the same standards that public schools meet.” In addition to the Arkansas Curriculum Frameworks required by the Arkansas Department of Education, the school offers an expanded core curriculum designed for students who are blind or visually impaired, as
well as a full athletic program.
“I just don’t think you can match the consistency
and level of services that we have here for these kids and the opportunities that we give them,” Caton added. “We don’t put any limitations on them.” Every teacher at the school is certified or becoming certified to teach children who have visual impairments. Nearly 100 students attend the school, which has an average class size of five. That small class size allows teachers to provide hands-on instruction to their students.
“There’s no such thing as a lazy teacher of the visually impaired,” said Teresa Doan, athletic director and elementary school principal.
“You can’t work with a blind child and not touch them and show them things. That’s how we open the world to them.”
Preschool children parade down the hallway, using training canes with red rolling balls. The children are part of the school’s Short Term Academic Assessment Classroom, or STAAC, and learning to navigate using
SEE NOTES, PAGE 8
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